West Texas A&M 2010 Regular Season Schedule

Football season is here which means Texas Football is back.  There is nothing that I love more than a good Texas Football game whether it be UT playing or Dripping Springs High School, I love a good game.  The team I am featuring today is West Texas A&M.  Starting out ranked #11 in the nation at preseason, they finished last season 7-5 which was far below their predicted outcome.  I would not be surprised if they went undefeated this season but at the same time, you never know with the problems they have had in their past with coaches and players.  We all remember the Ryan Leaf scandal.  I feel like he has given the school at bad name, but it does not seem to be hurting them in the polls.  I guess its good the normal fan isn’t voting because I thought it was joke when he first got there then when it all went down, I definately had one of those “I told you so” moments.  With four starting wide receivers returning this season, you can bet the offensive production is still going to be there and hopefully even better this season.  If you are in the Amarillo area you should stop by in a couple of hours for their first public practice which is open to everyone and best of all FREE.  They met with the public last night answering questions and getting to know the town.

West Texas A&M Regular Season Schedule

Date	Opponent	Location	Time
9/2/2010	Grand Valley State	Allendale, MI	7:00 PM
9/11/2010	Southwestern Oklahoma State	Weatherford, OK	6:00 PM
9/18/2010	Southeastern Oklahoma State	Canyon, TX	6:00 PM
9/25/2010	Angelo State	San Angelo, TX	6:00 PM
10/2/2010	Northeastern State	Tahlequah, OK	12:00 PM
10/9/2010	Tarleton State	Canyon, TX	6:00 PM
10/16/2010	Texas A&M	Kingsville, TX	7:00 PM
10/23/2010	Midwestern State	Canyon, TX	6:00 PM
10/30/2010	University of the Incarnate Word	San Antonio, TX	2:00 PM
11/6/2010	Abilene Christian University	Canyon, TX	6:00 PM
11/13/2010	East Central University	Canyon, TX	1:00 PM

Mack Brown Rap

The title says it all.  I am a fan of music but more importantly Chopped and Screwed music.  You know, the slowed down style normally involving a deep voice.  For sure, it sounds a lot like Mike Jones more than likely and it could be for all I know.  What I do know is that its a baller song that Mack Brown should play right before he goes and gives his big speech before the game.  In fact they should just go ahead and make a rap song for all the players and they should just listen to the song before the game starts and there wouldn’t even need to be a big speech.  Anyways, check the video out because it was originally showcased on 1300 The Zone (AM Radio Station out of Austin) which is my favorite station when I am in Austin because its the official Longhorn station.

2010 D-2 Football Preseason Top 25

With the start of football season just around the corner, I thought I would start out the Division 2 season with a preseason Top 25 Poll.  The American Football Coaches Association has put together the list (this is not in any way influenced by SidelineBlog at all).  We have nothing to do with these rankings so please send all of your complaints to one of the people listed here.  That being said, this season looks to be a great one for those Texas teams.  With 3 of them being in the Top 25 in the nation and not one of them being ranked above 8th, I am excited to see how they react to being underdogs this season for the first time in a while.  With the expectations not as high for West Texas A&M this season, I bet they can put together a solid regular season and get to the playoffs.  Everyone knows that once playoffs begin, anything and everything will happen.  It seems like Northwest Missouri State is always in that Top 5 and I hope they get knocked off their pedestal at some point this season.

2010 Division 2 Preseason Coaches Poll

Rank	School	2009 Record	Points	2009 Rank
1	Northwest Missouri St.	14-1	645	1
2	Grand Valley St.	13-2	621	2
3	North Alabama	11-2	580	6
4	Minnesota-Duluth	11-2	549	5
5	Central Washington	12-1	499	3
6	California (Pa.)	11-4	489	7
7	Abilene Christian	9-4	435	13
8	West Liberty (W. Va.)	11-2	420	9
9	Carson-Newman (Tenn.)	11-3	400	4
10	Washburn (Kan.)	8-3	339	25
11	West Texas A&M	7-5	337	NR
12	West Alabama	8-5	313	21
13	Nebraska-Kearney	11-2	296	8
14	Saginaw Valley St. (Mich)	9-3	235	19
15	Nebraska-Omaha	7-5	232	NR
16	Texas A&M-Kingsville	9-3	216	16
17	Tuskegee (Ala.)	10-2	210	17
18	Hillsdale (Mich.)	10-3	188	11
19	Midwestern St.	9-3	163	14
20	Missouri Western St.	9-3	160	NR
21	Minnesota St. Mankato	10-2	127	12
22	West Chester (PA)	7-4	122	NR
23	North Carolina-Pembroke	9-2	115	20
24	Delta State (Miss.)	5-5	93	NR
25	East Stroudsburg (Pa.)	8-4	74	NR

Move over Minnesota, Notre Dame is here.

The all but sealed deal between the Minnesota Gophers and the Texas Longhorns  is anything but at this point.  The deal was that Texas and Minnesota would play each other in 2015 and 2016.  I imagine that Minnesota had thought Christmas had come early when they thought they had this deal in the bag back in September 2009 because anyone who plays the Longhorns gets rich.  While this would have been the first time the two teams had gotten together was just a few years after the Great Depression back in 1936.  While this may come as a disappointment to Longhorn fans, I have heard rumors of the Minnesota series being replaced by playing Notre Dame in the same seasons.  We have all heard about how Notre Dame has been wanting to ramp up their schedule in order to boost rankings and viewership.  It looks like they have taken a swipe at Minnesota while trying to increase their ratings.  Good thing I am not a Gopher fan or I might be mad.  Maybe they will get their shot in the Alamo Bowl if Texas craters this season behind Garrett Gilbert.  As a Lohghorn fan, I look forward to whooping up on Notre Dame in the future.  Especially if Will Muschamp is at the helm.

SidelineBlog Preseason Top 25 Rankings

First of all I would like to tell you how good it personally feels to see USC not in the Top 25 this season due to their slight death penalty.  However, I do not like how the Big 12 really got screwed in the USA Today Poll.  We here at SidelineBlog have created my own Top 25 that in my opinion is more realistic because you are kididing yourself if you think that Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and more have given up because teams are leaving.  Texas is put at #1 because their program consistently puts together the best team possible out on the field and this season it just so happens to be the best in the nation.  Now whether or not they live up to those expectations is very doubtful if you look at their past (minus the win against USC with Vince Young).  I am excited to see how the Top 25 ends up in the end and how close I am right now to predicting it.  We will be monitoring the situation all season and will have updates periodically (More than likely on a weekly to bi-weekly basis).  Without further ado, here is our Top 25 preseason rankings:

Rank	Team	Record
1	Texas	0-0
2	Alabama	0-0
3	Ohio State	0-0
4	Florida	0-0
5	TCU	0-0
6	Nebraska	0-0
7	Miami U (FL)	0-0
8	Boise State	0-0
9	Wisconsin	0-0
10	Oklahoma	0-0
11	Iowa	0-0
12	Virginia Tech	0-0
13	LSU	0-0
14	Penn State	0-0
15	Florida State	0-0
16	Pittsburgh	0-0
17	Georgia Tech	0-0
18	North Carolina	0-0
19	Arkansas	0-0
20	Houston	0-0
21	Oregon State	0-0
22	Cincinnati	0-0
23	Oklahoma State	0-0
24	Oregon	0-0
25	Missouri	0-0

2010-11 Longhorn Men’s Basketball Regular Season Schedule

For all of you Longhorn fan’s out there, I have some exciting news for you.  Out of the 31 regular season games, you will be able to see 21 of them on TV.  Even though I doubt they will open up in the Top Ten, I see this season as a great opportunity for Texas to show the Big 12 that its not just all about Football.  If they do well in New York City at the beginning of the season, they could face Illinois in the 2K Sports Classic basketball tournament.  The games you should obviously be excited about are the games against North Carolina, Michigan State, USC, Texas A&M, Baylor, Kansas, and Oklahoma.  Those are all potentially great games.  I am not promising a triple overtime game, but you know they are going to put up a fight to play all those guys.  Anyways, here is what the schedule looks like so far:

Texas Longhorn 2010-2011 Regular Season Schedule

Date	Opponent	Location	Time (All CST)
11/08/2010	Navy	Austin, Texas	8:00PM
11/10/2010	Louisiana Tech	Austin, Texas	8:00PM
11/18/2010	TBA (2K Sports Tourny)	New York City, N.Y.	8:30PM
11/19/2010	TBA (2K Sports Tourny)	New York City, N.Y.	TBA
11/23/2010	Sam Houston State	Austin, Texas	TBA
11/27/2010	Rice	Austin, Texas	TBA
12/01/2010	Lamar	Austin, Texas	TBA
12/05/2010	USC	Los Angeles, CA	TBA
12/11/2010	Texas State	Austin, Texas	TBA
12/14/2010	North Florida	Austin, Texas	TBA
12/18/2010	North Carolina	Greensboro, N.C.	3:00PM
12/22/2010	Michigan State	East Lansing, MI	6:00PM
12/31/2010	Coppin State	Austin, Texas	TBA
01/04/2011	Arkansas	Austin, Texas	8:00PM
01/08/2011	Connecticut	Austin, Texas	2:30PM
01/11/2011	Texas Tech	Lubbock, Texas	6:00PM
01/15/2011	Oklahoma	Austin, Texas	3:00PM
01/19/2011	Texas A&M	Austin, Texas	8:00PM
01/22/2011	Kansas	Lawrence, KS	3:00PM
01/26/2011	Oklahoma State	Stillwater, OK	6:30PM
01/29/2011	Missouri	Austin, Texas	8:00PM
01/31/2011	Texas A&M	College Station, Texas	8:00PM
02/05/2011	Texas Tech	Austin, Texas	8:00PM
02/09/2011	Oklahoma	Norman, OK	8:00PM
02/12/2011	Baylor	Austin, Texas	1:00PM
02/16/2011	Oklahoma State	Austin, Texas	8:00PM
02/19/2011	Nebraska	Lincoln, NE	12:45PM
02/22/2011	Iowa State	Austin, Texas	7:00PM
02/26/2011	Colorado	Boulder, CO	TBA
02/28/2011	Kansas State	Austin, Texas	8:00PM
03/05/2011	Baylor	Waco, Texas	TBA

Brett Favre is Retiring for a Third Time

Yes for real this time, Brett Favre has decided not to return to the Minnesota Vikings more than likely due to his surgery not going as well as he had first thought.  Brett Farve has reportedly been sending retirement text messages to all of his teammates this morning.  Is this really for good though?  We have a long time until September.  Being a Cowboys fan this is music to my ears honestly.  I was kind of tired of hearing all about whether or not he was coming back but I do find it interesting that everyone in the media just assumed that he was coming back when he had his surgery and then he ends up not coming back.   He ends his career with the following staggering stats:

Brett Favre Career Stats

Superbowl Champion	1996
Pro Bowl	11x (1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2009)
First-team All Pro	3x (1995, 1996, 1997)
Second-team All Pro	3x (2001, 2002, 2007)
NFL MVP	3x (1995, 1996, 1997)
NFC Player of the Year	5x (1995, 1996, 1997, 2002, 2007)
NFC Champion	2x (1996, 1997)
Consecutive Starts	285

MLB Trade Deadline Biggest Winners and Losers!

This past weekend marked Major League Baseball’s trade deadline which meant that any team hoping to get that extra oomph for the upcoming playoffs had to join in on the fire-sale that was this years trading block.  I seriously doubt there has ever been a bigger stage for players on the trading block than this years July 31rst deadline.  The past month all I have heard about on TV, Radio, and the Blogosphere is about either Lebron James and the Miami Heat or baseball’s crazy moves.  I fear that baseball is headed towards the problems that Formula One is having right now and start having teams that can no longer afford to spend the kind of money that these other teams (Yankee’s and Red Sox) have been spending over the past few years.  I personally believe that would be bad for baseball just because you get these super-teams that kind of rule the whole league.  Some of the teams who made off like a true champion would are:

New York Yankees – I figured I would start out with the team that is always making huge moves.  Because I put them first, does not mean that I actually think they made off the best, I just figured I throw the obvious stuff at you first.  While they did not get the player they were after at first (Roy Oswalt) they were able to pick up Lance Berkman, Kerry Wood, and Austin Kearns.  These moves are considered to be gap fillers at this point, but I think it might be just what they need to pull off another World Series run.

Texas Rangers - Wait a second??? I thought they were operating in Chapter 11??  Yes, they actually are, but they made out like rats still.  They picked up the best player that was available in Cliff Lee, then  managed to  wrangle up Jorge Cantu, Bengie Molina, and Christian Guzman.  I know, I know…This is the baseball team who has an 8 game lead in their division.  It does not take a genius to realize the implications of all of these moves.  While having to give up their top first base prospect Justin Smoak, you only need to look past Lee to see how good of a trade the Rangers got.

So we have had a great look at the two biggest winners.  I would have to say Honorable Mention goes to the San Diego Padres and Atlanta Braves for their decent moves over the past weekend.  Both are looking forward to the rest of the season.  Lets take a look at the biggest losers (aka teams that really busted over the past few weeks) shall we?

San Francisco Giants – There was word they were interested in several people but as usual the Giants end up with jack diddly just a game in a half back in the NL West.  If tomorrow were the playoffs they would be in the last spot so you would think they would really be out there looking for someone to get.  They apparently were just not serious about it.  They need a big bat to increase some offense going into the playoffs because they have a clutch playoff pitching trio.

Tampa Bay Rays – So if you are in the same division as the New York Yankees, one would think you would want to be out there shopping for something.  At first I thought they would end up with Adam Dunn but such is life…then when the Yanks picked up Berkman I freaked out because I think any chance of winning the division has now gone and passed for the Rays.  I would have to say that the failure to go out and get some offense is really going to hurt them in the long run.  I wouldn’t be looking for the Rays to go very far through the playoffs this season.